


So Much to Be Thankful For

by morgaine2005



Series: Take Me Home and Related Tales [4]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adoption, Anxiety, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Issues, Fear of Abandonment, Finding Family, Gratuitous References to American Football, Holiday Stress & Anxiety, Holidays, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Supernatural violence, Thanksgiving, Ugly Holiday Sweaters, attempted date rape, gratuitous references to disney, it's mostly about family and finding belonging, lots of swearing, no I canNOT go one fic without a Disney reference come at me bro, the most upsetting stuff happens to unnamed human characters, this fic is not as heavy as the tags make it look
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27718945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgaine2005/pseuds/morgaine2005
Summary: Holidays are supposed to be times of joy and peace, togetherness and plenty. They're not supposed to be marred by terrible music, homophobic bakers, significant others unleashing their wilder sides at bars, or clueless in-laws tap-dancing on centuries-old trauma. And this one won't be, either. It's the first time Ariadne is having her biological parents to her home for the holiday, and everything will be fine. Better than fine - everything is going to be perfect.Readers, everything is not perfect. And it isn't fine, either.(Ariadne invites Aziraphale & Crowley to Los Angeles for the Thanksgiving holiday. She wants to put together the perfect holiday weekend to impress them and make sure they come back, but reality - and her own anxiety - have other ideas. Luckily, she has family who love her and can help her learn to breathe again.)
Relationships: Ariadne/Dionysus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Take Me Home and Related Tales [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857055
Comments: 29
Kudos: 25





	1. Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the same universe as [Take Me Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331921) and picks up right where [Missed Connections](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26096026) leaves off. As such, _here be spoilers_ for both of those stories (and it really won't make sense if you haven't read them).
> 
> I wrote this story in part because I've had the ideas rattling around in my head since last Thanksgiving and in part to deal with some of my own disappointment at not having the Thanksgiving I'd like to have because of *waves hand at 2020 nonsense*. It's completely written, and though it has 3 chapters, it will be posted in 2 chunks. The first two chapters are going up tonight and the last one will go up tomorrow.
> 
> This fic would not exist without my wonderful, wonderful friends and betas: [andavri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andavri/pseuds/andavri), [AnnUsual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnUsual/pseuds/AnnUsual), and [Kat_Rowe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Rowe/pseuds/Kat_Rowe). Much love to all the amazing folks at the [Ace Omens](https://discord.com/channels/606085415174144040/606091582122360832) Discord server, too! You are all amazing and I love you. Thank you so much for all of your help as I wrote this puppy in about a week because who has two thumbs and likes to procrastinate? That's right, ME!

_Circa 2019_

_Los Angeles, CA_

It was a perfectly lovely day in LA. The sun was shining, the air temperature a pleasant sixty-six degrees. Traffic was moderate by the standards of most major metropolitan areas, which meant it was near-nonexistent by LA standards.

And Ariadne was fine. She absolutely was not white-knuckling the steering wheel as she kept the car on cruise control down a perfectly straight stretch of road. She wasn’t forcing herself to breathe calmly and evenly in a vain attempt to slow her racing heartbeat. And she certainly wasn’t hoping that neither of her passengers would notice these inconvenient bodily reactions, because none of them were happening, thank you very much.

Ariadne. Was. Fine.

“Ariadne—” said Aziraphale from the backseat, and Ariadne tensed, because oh shit, he’d noticed, seen Ariadne’s relief and happiness at the airport terminal melt away like snow under the California sunshine, and now he’d want her to explain, but how could she explain? She was fine, she _should be_ fine, everything was _fine_ and there was no reason[1] her to feel like every inner organ was vibrating and her thoughts were circling so fast they might just reach escape velocity if she wasn’t careful—

Except Aziraphale didn’t ask anything of the kind. “Forgive me, dear, I seem to have forgotten – but what is the plan for, er, Thanksgiving again?”

 _Thanksgiving? Oh, THANKSGIVING!_ Right. The whole reason why Crowley and Aziraphale had endured an eleven-hour transatlantic, transcontinental flight. To see her. For Thanksgiving.

“That is,” Aziraphale went on, probably because she was taking too long to respond, “I know you mentioned that you typically have other guests, but it seems to have slipped my mind …”

“Oh! Oh, right,” Ariadne said, and – good, she sounded almost normal there. She tossed her head and rolled her shoulders, because she was fine, really. “So it’ll be pretty small. Most years it’s just Dionysus and me, Semele – Dionysus’s mother, she’s a sweetheart, you’ll love her – and Hermes and Maia, his mother. And it’s the same this year. Plus you. Well, you two,” she said, nodding to encompass Crowley, riding shotgun, in that statement.

Crowley nodded, but otherwise didn’t react. Aziraphale, however, perked up. “Ah, yes, Semele! I’ve heard of—that is, I took the liberty to do some reading—oh, dear, this is not coming out well …”

“What the angel is trying to say,” Crowley said, smirking slightly at Ariadne, “is that Aziraphale’s been doing some internet stalking of your mother-in-law, only without the benefit of the internet.”

Ariadne laughed – really laughed – even as Aziraphale huffed, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean – and that I’ve done nothing of the sort, _really_.”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Ariadne said, even as a knot in her stomach that she hadn’t properly realized was there began to untie itself. It was reassuring, in a way, to think of Aziraphale thumbing through old books in the hopes of walking into this dinner with some preparation. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a newly bought translated and annotated Tanakh, an annotated Greek Orthodox Bible, and a translated and annotated Quran currently living on her bedside table. One had to start somewhere, if only to come up with the questions she wanted answered.[2]

It was nice to know that she wasn’t alone in that.

“So what do you want to know?” Ariadne asked.

“Well, I, er, I suppose I’m mostly curious to know if it’s true that she was a normal human, before, er—”

“She got knocked up by Zeus, incinerated via some nasty scheme of Hera’s, and then dragged out of the Underworld by your partner?” Crowley asked.

Ariadne threw back her head and laughed, loud enough that she almost didn’t hear Aziraphale’s scandalized, “ _Crowley_!”

“What? It’s true, innit?”

“Let me guess,” Ariadne said. “You’ve been internet stalking my in-laws, too?”

“With the benefit of the actual internet, I will have you know,” Crowley said with a slight sideways smirk.

“Ooh, much more efficient.”

“Hear that, angel?” Crowley said, turning around to face Aziraphale at—really, his spine shouldn’t work like that, but somehow it did. “She thinks my way is more efficient.”

“Efficient, perhaps, but lacking nuance, I’m sure,” Aziraphale replied, sounding as prim and proper as he could be, but if Ariadne checked the rearview mirror – yes, that was definitely a small smile that wasn’t hidden nearly well enough.

Crowley seemed to see it too, because he laughed again, turning back around with a real, large grin plastered on his face.

“To answer your question, yes, Semele was mortal—or, well, close enough. Her mother was Harmonia, Ares and Aphrodite’s daughter, but usually kids from an immortal mother and a mortal father turn out mortal. Don’t ask me why.”

They didn’t. Instead, Aziraphale’s eyes went wide, and Crowley did that impossible-spine thing to turn to _her_. “ _Ares_? As in, Dionysus’s brother?”

“Yep,” Ariadne said. “We don’t think about that.”

“And Aphrodite,” Crowley continued, “who came from Ouranos’s—”

“We _really_ don’t think about that!” Ariadne said, not least because—well. She’d seen the video of their little jaunt down to Hell and what Satan had said to Dionysus. There was only one conclusion to be drawn from that, and since drawing that conclusion was as sure as sure a path to madness as anything Ariadne had ever seen, she very deliberately was not drawing that conclusion.

Crowley’s eyebrows had arched well over his sunglasses and seemed to be on the verge of making a break for his hairline. “Well,” he murmured. “And here I thought we were messed up.”

“ _Crowley_!”

“ _What_?!”

“It’s ok,” Ariadne said before a spirited round of bickering could break out. “No, really, it’s fine. We’re messed up. I mean—I mean, the Greeks are messed up. And we all know it, and, you know. We deal with it. Somehow.”

Crowley snorted, and Aziraphale shook his head – but both, at least, were smiling, and, well, that had to be a good thing, didn’t it?

Or at least Ariadne hoped it was a good thing. Because as soon as she said that, silence fell over the car, and—maybe she shouldn’t have interrupted the bickering. Ariadne had no idea what else to say, and Crowley and Aziraphale weren’t saying anything, either, and they still had a good twenty minutes before they got home—

So Ariadne did the thing many a nervous driver had done when the conversation flagged and they had no idea what to say and still needed to sort-of pay attention to the road, so they couldn’t devote their entire brains to the problem.

She turned on the radio.

However, she had forgotten several things:

  1. The radio was tuned to _the radio_ , not the music on her phone or to Spotify.
  2. The last station she’d listened to had been a generally inoffensive Top 40 station.
  3. It was two days before Thanksgiving, which was, in the minds of some generally inoffensive Top 40 station DJs (or their much more offensive corporate taskmasters), Christmas season.
  4. Christmas songs had a much, much longer shelf life than other Top 40 songs.



If she had remembered those things, she might – might – have been less surprised when an unholy screeching paired with a borderline toxic dose of holiday “cheer” filled the vehicle.

“ _BABY, ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS—_ ”

Ariadne jabbed the radio off so hard that her finger nearly went through the button and halfway into the car’s electronics. Which would have been unfortunate.

Although not so unfortunate, perhaps, as what she _had_ just done.

_SHIIIIIT!_

Aziraphale and Crowley were _Abrahamics_! Ariadne strongly disliked all Christmas music on principle, but this was their _jam_ , and she’d just turned it off like—like she strongly disliked all Christmas music on principle and hadn’t even thought about the other people in the car with her—

Ariadne glanced sidelong at Crowley, but his expression was inscrutable behind the dark glasses. She checked the rearview mirror, because Aziraphale tended to be more open, and— _oh, FUCK!_

He was staring at the radio in what could be called shock, or maybe horror, or maybe—Ariadne didn’t even know what to call it. Her stomach plunged.

She hadn’t even gotten _home_ yet, and she’d already messed this up!

“S-sorry,” she said, grip tightening on the steering wheel and barely daring to glance away from the road. “Did you want to listen to that? That song—not my favorite, is all, but if you like it—”

Crowley slowly turned to face her. One eyebrow lifted above the sunglasses.

Ariadne held her breath and held herself very, very still.

“I assure you, Ariadne,” Crowley said, “there is no one in this vehicle with the _least_ interest in listening to the dulcet tones of Madam Carey.”

The words _dulcet tones_ dripped with so much sarcasm that they ought to have come with a wet floor sign.

And Aziraphale was no better. “My goodness,” he said, with feeling, “what on earth was that?”

Right. Of course. Crowley listened to classic rock. And not counting musical theater, Aziraphale’s musical taste seemed stuck somewhere in the nineteenth century. Abrahamics or no Abrahamics – they weren’t going to like that song.

Ariadne could breathe again.

“ _That_ was, unfortunately, one of the most popular songs of all time, I think, if you go by charts and sales,” Ariadne said. “But it’s ok. There are better options.” And this time, instead of just turning on the radio, she loaded up one of the two playlists she’d made specifically for this visit. One was called Dad Rock, the other, Dad Not-Rock.

She chose the latter, filling the car with the soothing strains of Vivaldi.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, wiggling a little, “oh, this is lovely. Thank you, dear.”

“No problem,” Ariadne said.

Crowley, however, was glaring at her in a way that managed to penetrate the sunglasses. “ _Dad Rock_?”

“Oh, you saw that title?” Ariadne replied.

“I will have you know,” Crowley said, “that my musical taste is _impeccable_.”

“And shared by middle-aged dads the world over,” Ariadne answered. “But let me guess—kids like me just wouldn’t understand?”

“Kids like—” Crowley sat up, not quite straight, but close to it. “You are thirty-eight hundred and sixty-three years old[3], young lady! _You_ are no kid!”

Ariadne threw back her head and laughed.

Because it was fine. Despite her nerves and her stupid overreaction and her chronic case of tied tongue, it really was fine. Her parents were here; they seemed to be enjoying themselves; and Ariadne was not going to mess this up.

It was fine. Ariadne was fine. Everything was _fine_.

And this was going to be her best Thanksgiving yet. 

* * *

[1] Well, no reason other than the anxiety of having her parents at her home for the first time ever. Or the anxiety of hosting them for a very important holiday. Or the sudden realization of how very, very close she’d come over the centuries to actually brushing up against her parents, being _discovered_ , and what would have likely happened to the three of them if Heaven and Hell had figured out about her existence any sooner than they had.

[2] There may or may not have been a list on her phone that was growing longer by the day.

[3] Not that he was counting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Legal Disclaimer:** Any opinions on the musical stylings of one M. Carey expressed above belong to the characters expressing them and may or may not be shared by the author.


	2. Wednesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day before Thanksgiving is going just fine. Sure, running errands is madness, but Ariadne, Aziraphale and Crowley are actually enjoying themselves - until a homophobic baker threatens to ruin everything. No worries, though, Ariadne can make her own Thanksgiving dinner rolls!
> 
> Or at least, she could if she didn't get a frantic phone call just after she put the rolls in the oven, asking her to come to the bar because Dionysus has gone full vengeful wine god.
> 
> But it's fine. It's all fine. Everything is FINE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a **mind the tags** chapter for homophobia, supernatural violence, PTSD, attempted date rape, and date rape drugs/roofies. If reading about these topics will upset you, see the end notes for a summary.

When Helios drove his fiery chariot over Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, had he looked into the home of his cousin Dionysus, he would have found an angel, a demon, a half-angel/half-demon, said cousin Dionysus, and Dionysus’s mother seated around the table in the breakfast nook. He would have also seen in the middle of said table numerous bags from one of Los Angeles’s better Mexican restaurants. It was perhaps a good thing he was not looking, because he might have been jealous if he did.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Dionysus had said when he had plopped the bags on the table after settling up with the delivery person. “When in LA, eat breakfast tacos.”

“Oh, these look scrummy,” Aziraphale had said, and he had seemed to mean it, because he’d eagerly taken a taco and had proceeded to dig in, only in a very polite and refined way, which … Ariadne wasn’t sure how he was managing it, but managing it he was.

And Ariadne wasn’t relieved – because for her to be _relieved_ , she would have had to be _worried_ , and she certainly wasn’t worried about as silly a thing as breakfast on the first full day her parents were spending in Los Angeles. It was just one meal. Just breakfast. She absolutely hadn’t spent way too many hours fretting over making a “proper English fry-up” for their first day, before reluctantly nixing the idea based on needing the fridge space for all the Thanksgiving fixings. And she absolutely didn’t still have all the recipes on her phone and a complete grocery list ready to go for later in the visit, when she had fridge space again.

Crowley, though … Crowley wasn’t eating. Or, well, he hadn’t eaten much. Just a quarter of a breakfast burrito before he shoved the plate over to Aziraphale (who made the burrito disappear like some kind of magic trick), and a cup of coffee strong enough to wake Ariadne up by smell alone. Terrifyingly, this was his third cup.

This did not worry Ariadne, at all. It would be silly to worry. Crowley might still be contending with jet lag. Or he might not be a breakfast person. Semele wasn’t – she was sitting next to Dionysus with a glass of orange juice and a bowl of Greek yogurt topped with walnuts and honey, laughing, “No, no tacos for me! Too much this early in the morning. But they will be good for lunch.”

“Yeah, this all needs to disappear before dinner. We’re not allowed to have leftovers,” Dionysus said. “Even Ariadne can only do so much with fridge Tetris and bending the space-time continuum.”

“You laugh,” Ariadne said, barely looking up from the errand list on her phone, “but it works.”

“Oh, I would _never_ deny that it works.” Dionysus grinned. “I have seen you work too many fridge-related miracles.”

“If—if a miracle is necessary,” Aziraphale said, “perhaps Crowley and I could be of assistance? That is, Ariadne, I’m sure you know your own refrigerator best, but, well, there’s something to be said for, er, technique, I suppose?”

“And magic that doesn’t fight you every step of the way?” Ariadne chuckled, and Aziraphale—was that a wince? Oh, she’d stepped in it now. “But—but it’s cool,” she said, maybe a little too quickly. “I mean—I appreciate the offer—but I have the fridge figured out. _And_. You guys already volunteered to come with me on the boring errands, so, I already owe you one, no?”

“Errands are only boring if you allow them to be,” Crowley said, smirking a little over his coffee cup. “I’m sure we can make them interesting.”

Ariadne laughed, and Aziraphale sighed. “ _Crowley_. What did I tell you about behaving?”

Crowley did not so much roll his eyes as his whole head. “Or what, you’ll punish me, angel?”

“TMI,” Dionysus said, “and speaking of behaving and things that start with ‘TM,’ as long as nobody ends up on the homepage of TMZ, we’ll be fine.”

“TM—what?” Aziraphale asked, glancing at Crowley.

“Celebrity gossip site,” Ariadne explained. “Extremely persistent. Extremely sneaky. I think they have at least one reporter who’s desperate to figure out what the deal is with Dionysus and me.”

Semele shook her head and clucked her tongue, but fondly, with a smile. “You should be more careful,” she said, looking right at Dionysus.

Dionysus grinned and unfolded himself from the chair. “Now where would the fun be in that, Mamá? More coffee, anyone?”

And so breakfast passed. And perhaps Ariadne did allow herself to breathe a little sigh of relief when it was done and the dishes loaded in the dishwasher and all she had to do was grab her keys and her purse and a jacket before hustling her parents out the door. But only because her parents and Semele were still getting along well. It was bound to be nerve-wracking, introducing new-ish in-laws to each other, wondering how or if the families would blend.

Yes. That was all that was causing Ariadne the least bit of worry or anxiety. Just in-law worries. Her mind was not racing in a thousand different directions, and she was absolutely _not_ thanking her lucky stars that the “worst” thing that had happened so far that day was Aziraphale, after Crowley told him it was his turn to take shotgun, had automatically wandered over to the driver’s side of the car and stared at the steering wheel in bafflement before remembering which country he was in and heading to the other side.

Although, of course, the day was still young.

“All right, so,” Ariadne said as she put the car into gear, “we need to hit up the Greek grocery store, because that’s where I ordered the kolokithopita and the tzatziki and the stuffed eggplant and the stuffing, and I need more cheese and olives; and then we need to head to the farmer’s market for the salad and my pumpkin soup ingredients, and, you know, the _bird_ ; and then the bakery for the rolls, and—and I _think_ that’s it,” Ariadne said, as if she hadn’t made her list of errands over a week ago and checked it four times that morning alone.

“What, no dessert?” Crowley asked lightly.

“Semele’s making her walnut pie now – it’s delicious, it’s like baklava pie – and Maia makes a mean milopita and kourabiethes, and I have plenty of ice cream in the freezer in case anyone wants any of the above a la mode. Plus whipped cream and chocolate sauce and caramel, for extra decadence.”

“Oh, that sounds scrummy,” Aziraphale said, with a little wiggle, and Crowley smiled, and Ariadne could breathe. She put on the Dad Rock playlist and away they went.

And it was fine – it was all fine, _actually_ fine, despite the traffic and needing to miracle a parking space everywhere they went if she didn’t want to park three blocks away. The crowds were a bit of a nightmare – nowhere near as bad as the Black Friday madness, but still – but nothing they couldn’t handle. And Aziraphale was very helpful at the farmer’s market, with his eye for produce, and Crowley was quite helpful, too, when a middle-aged woman looked ready to swoop in and grab the last of the good cucumbers. But a slight lowering of his sunglasses and a stuck-out (forked) tongue sent her running, literally.

Aziraphale had gasped, “ _Crowley_!” but Crowley had just grinned, unrepentant, and Ariadne had been too busy laughing until her stomach hurt to care much.

And grabbing the cucumbers, of course, because she wasn’t stupid.

Really, Ariadne was having a good time – and if the way Aziraphale and Crowley moved steadily closer together with every stop was any indication, they were having a good time, too. They were practically holding hands by the time they got to the bakery, or they might have been, except Aziraphale opened the door for Ariadne and insisted that she and Crowley precede him through.

There was a line, of course. There always was at Breadsmith on the day before Thanksgiving. But Ariadne found it hard to mind. The smell of fresh-baked bread, pies and pastries was intoxicating enough on any day, but the day before the biggest feast of the year? Ariadne would call it heavenly, except she’d been to Heaven, sort of, and it really hadn’t smelled like much of anything.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said after he followed Crowley inside, looking around wonderingly.

“Oh?” Ariadne asked, raising an eyebrow.

“There’s love here.” Aziraphale blinked owlishly, wrinkling his nose. Ariadne knew instinctively that none of the mortals around them would pick up on the conversation “And—and—something else—Crowley, do you feel anything?”

“Hmm …” Crowley’s nostrils flared, and Ariadne could have sworn she saw the flicker of that forked tongue.

Then his eyebrows scrunched, and he plunged his hands in his pockets, and he shrugged. “Nothing worth writing home about.”

“Hmm … I could have sworn …” Aziraphale shook his head. “Never mind. Do you come here often, Ariadne?”

“Oh yeah,” Ariadne said as the line moved forward and they moved with it. “Been coming since it opened. It’s a real labor of love, this place. Only a matter of time before it gets covered by a major magazine or the Food Network.” She hesitated and asked in a small voice, “That’s—that’s the warm/bright feeling, right? Love?”

Aziraphale beamed, literally, like the sun, and the warm/bright feeling flooded the little bakery. “Oh, you can sense it? I wasn’t—I mean, I _do_ remember you picking up on the church, back in Tadfield, but I wasn’t sure …”

“I—I think I can? Most of the time? But unless I’m really concentrating and trying to get a read on something, sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s _sensing_ , and what’s just a few millennia of observing mortals in their natural habitat.”

Aziraphale smiled and chuckled at that, as Ariadne had expected him to. But Crowley didn’t throw his head back and laugh at that, as Ariadne had expected – or rather hoped – he would. Instead his eyebrows scrunched, and he said, “Ariadne—if you have questions, you know you just have to—”

“Next!” came the call from behind the counter, and that killed that conversation.

Ariadne stepped up, but before she had a chance to say anything, the man behind the cash register – Peter, who owned the bakery with his wife Sarah – was smiling down at her. “Well, Miss Ariadne! There you are. I was beginning to wonder if I wouldn’t see you this Thanksgiving.”

“Not a chance,” Ariadne laughed. “I’m here to pick up my rolls.”

“Ah, yes, of course, we’ve got ‘em all ready for you. Joseph!” Peter called to his teenaged son. “Get Mrs. Tavros’s order now, won’t you? Now, Miss Ariadne, let me just ring you up …”

Ariadne fished her card out of her purse and held it out as Peter pawed through the stack of order forms next to the register. “You sure it’s just rolls this year?” Peter asked. He looked up, a faint twinkle in his eye. “I can’t tempt you to a nice peach cobbler? Or, ooh, how about some apple pie? Nothing better than apple pie at Thanksgiving.”

Ariadne did _not_ look at Crowley when he said that, because she knew if she did she would have lost it, and there would be no explaining to Peter or any other mortal in the shop why the thought of a someone trying to “tempt” her to apple anything with _Crowley_ standing right behind her was so funny. “Maybe someday. If my mother-in-law stops making her walnut pie or my brother-in-law’s mother stops making her apple cake.”

Peter sighed with disappointment that was, in Ariadne’s professional opinion, at least fifty percent acting. “Well, if you insist, Miss Ariadne. Now—” His eyes flickered up; he went still. And Ariadne sensed—something. Something dark, something cold, with a scent like milk left out in the sun for three days.

Peter’s voice was just this side of polite when he spoke next. “I’ll be with you— _gents_ in just a second. Please don’t crowd.”

_Huh?_ Ariadne thought, and looked over her shoulder—but the only “gents” standing near her were Crowley and Aziraphale …

_Oh!_ “Oh—oh don’t worry, they’re with me. My dads,” she added, with no small hint of pride. “Anthony Crowley,” she gestured over her left shoulder, “and Ezra Fell,” she gestured over her right. “Guys—this is Peter Sanderson; he owns the …”

She trailed off. The cold/dark feeling and the sour milk smell had grown stronger. And Peter was staring at her parents with an expression every bit as cold, every bit as dark, and every bit as rotten.

Ariadne dared a glance behind. Aziraphale was smiling, but it was a small smile that didn’t come up anywhere near his eyes. And Crowley almost seemed to be grinning—but while Ariadne watched, the grin fell away, replaced by a scowl fierce enough to send small children and probably a few lesser demons running.

“Well,” Peter said flatly. “’Zat so? Have to say, Miss Ariadne, I didn’t see you as the … type.”

“Excuse me?” Ariadne asked. She didn’t need to, not really—but she wanted to be sure.

“Just—pegged you as a—decent sort, that’s all. From a good, clean family. Now, let me just get those rolls—”

“Forget the rolls,” said Ariadne, plucking her card from Peter’s waiting hand. “And between you and me, Mr. Sanderson, the only person in my household who gets _pegged_ is my partner when I’m in a mood. Have a lovely life, I won’t be back.”

And without a further word, she turned on one heel and stormed out of the bakery. She didn’t even think to make sure that Crowley and Aziraphale were following until Aziraphale called out, “Ariadne, wait!” and gently took hold of her elbow – and almost immediately let go.

It was at that point that Ariadne realized, as the line from _Hamilton_ went, three fundamental truths at the exact same time:

  1. She had just unwittingly led her male-presenting, partnered parents who had spent the past six thousand years deep in what could only be called a closet into a bakery infested with homophobes.
  2. She had just mentioned _pegging_ in front of her parents.
  3. She had no rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.



She had no idea which truth was more distressing. She _did_ know there was nothing she could do about the second, little she could do about the first, and—well, hopefully _something_ she could do about the third.

“Sorry, sorry!” she said, pawing at her purse until she found her phone, trying to multitask (and not daring to look at her parents’ faces). “I—I swear I had _no idea_ he was such a jerk. He never—well, I guess I never asked him to bake a cake for a gay wedding, but still, this is LA, you’d think that people who live here would realize this is not the place to be homophobic—or if they’re going to be homophobic, they should, I don’t know, put up a sign or something, so the rest of us know to take our business elsewhere—I should update my Yelp review of this place, make sure people are warned—”

“There was a cross,” Crowley said lightly, “if you looked into the kitchen. Right above the oven.”

Ariadne almost groaned, because of course there was—and then she gasped, because there was a _cross_ and Crowley was a demon, and while crosses didn’t bother her (she couldn’t have survived in Renaissance Italy if they had), Crowley was a _full demon_ —

“Relax,” Crowley said, as if he could read her mind. “Demon. Not vampire. Takes more than one cross to bother me.”

“Oh—oh, good,” Ariadne said, and _finally_ she found her phone and was able to open her recipe app and start searching.

“Ariadne,” Aziraphale said softly, “what—what are you doing?”

“Rolls!” she said. “We—I need rolls! For tomorrow. And I’m not going to be able to order any more, not at this point, so, so I just need a recipe, and—and I can make some—”

“My dear, you’re already doing quite a lot for dinner tomorrow,” Aziraphale said, “I’m sure you don’t need to … well, they come in a can here, don’t they? Or—or a long tube? Surely you can just find something quick and easy.”

Ariadne stared at him, blinking, wondering what he was on about and why it made him look so queasy—and then realized. Aziraphale, food-loving Aziraphale, Aziraphale who dined at the Ritz-Carlton London on a regular basis, Aziraphale who had a more sophisticated palate than your average head chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant, was seriously suggesting that she make Pillsbury rolls out of a can. For Thanksgiving dinner. Like _she_ had any right to be hurt or upset or overwhelmed by this whole debacle.

So Ariadne laughed, because she had to, and did her damnedest to look unconcerned. “No—no, I can make bread. I promise. I’ve done it before. And—” By some miracle her first result was a recipe for dinner rolls. A quick scan, and Ariadne had some measure of confidence back. “And look! See, simple recipe right here. I just—I just need to pop by the grocery store to pick up a few ingredients – Semele probably used up the last of the flour on her pie – and I’ll be good to go. Easy peasy. Although, if you want, I can drop you off at home first—”

“We’ll go with you,” Aziraphale said firmly. Ariadne glanced automatically at Crowley, only to find him looking over his shoulder at the bakery with a scowl.

_Great,_ Ariadne thought, _just great, great job, Ari._

But she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and told herself to woman up and deal with it.

“Well—well, thank you. No, really, thanks. And—” She shook herself all over and forced a smile. “It’s just dinner rolls. Just a few more ingredients and a little bit of baking time this evening. No sweat. It’ll be fine.”

And it would be fine, Ariadne promised herself as she herded her parents into the car and set a course on her mental GPS for the nearest supermarket. One way or another. It _would_ be fine.

* * *

As Ariadne slid the baking pan into the oven, she let herself exhale for the first time since storming out of the bakery. It was fine. It really was fine. Even if the rolls burned, it would be fine, because Ariadne had un-burned bread before, and she would not hesitate to do so again.

“Is there anything else we can help with?” Aziraphale asked. He was holding a dishtowel and eyeing the mess with a calculating look. “I understand that the turkey can’t be done until tomorrow, but you mentioned something about soup …?”

Her heart swelled a little. She had tried to insist that Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t need to help her with this, that they ought to just relax before the insanity of tomorrow, but Aziraphale wouldn’t hear of it. “Nonsense, dear girl,” he had said, and he had taken off his fussy jacket and his waistcoat and actually rolled up his sleeves, and that had been the end of that.[1]

“My pumpkin soup. That’s tomorrow,” Ariadne said, hopping onto the barstool next to Crowley (that being where her wineglass had ended up) and dealing with the mess with a snap of her fingers. “And so is the salad. So we’re good for now.”

“Pumpkin soup,” Crowley said musingly, twirling his glass between his fingers.

Ariadne wasn’t sure what, exactly, he was musing about, but she began to justify herself anyway. “It’s my specialty. I make it every year, even when Hermes hosts in New York. Guarantees there will be one homemade dish on that table, because Maia refuses to bring baked goods on a plane and the less said about Hermes’s attempts at cooking, the better.”

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale asked, taking the last barstool. “Do you go to New York for Thanksgiving often, then?”

“Every other year,” Ariadne said. “We switch off. I think Semele prefers New York, at least, the travel time is a _lot_ less for her, since she won’t fly. And Hermes loves the parade. And then there’s Broadway, so Dionysus and I are happy.”

“Do you get to join Dionysus and Semele on the bar-hopping when you’re in New York?” Crowley asked. He wasn’t looking at her, rather at the wineglass, and there was something lurking under those words – but Ariadne couldn’t tell what it was for the life of her.

So she decided to be honest. “I could go bar-hopping with them here – I mean, I could have made the rolls tomorrow. But I like a quiet night in before the craziness. Sometimes I think Dionysus and Semele only go out because it’s the biggest bar night of the year, and Dionysus can’t exactly miss that and still call himself the God of Wine. And …”

Ariadne hesitated; the next logical thing that came to mind was skirting close to things that she was mature enough to realize probably should be discussed between them, but that she had no idea how to begin to say. Maybe bringing it up slantwise would be enough to get them started. “Well … Dionysus and Semele don’t—I don’t think they ever have gotten the kind of time together they would have wanted. We’re—we’re just so _busy_ , and Semele lives in Greece and we’re here and … and Semele didn’t get a chance to raise Dionysus, so I … I figure sometimes the best thing I can do for them is just make myself scarce for an evening so they can bond and talk, you know?”

And maybe they did know. Or maybe they heard what she was trying to say but couldn’t quite put into words. Because something shifted in that moment. Aziraphale tilted his head a little to one side; Crowley’s insouciant lean shifted direction, became toward Ariadne instead of away. One of them, Ariadne sensed, was about to say _something_ that might help them move forward—

The ringing of Ariadne’s phone killed the moment stone dead. And it wasn’t a telemarketer or a scam call she could just dismiss.

Instead, Semele’s name and photo flashed onto the screen, and Ariadne scrambled to pick it up.

“Semele?” she said. This wasn’t right – the night was still young; Dionysus and Semele planned to take Ubers from one bar to the next; they’d already told her not to wait up—

“Ari!” Semele said, her voice barely audible over the cacophony in the background. Something crashed on the other end of the line, followed by the sound of tinkling glass. “Come to the bar! Dionysus, he is not happy!”

If Ariadne needed any confirmation about the massive understatement _not happy_ was, the mortal voices shrieking in the background provided it. “What’s going on?”

“Some mortals, they were not good—and now he is _Bromios_!” Another crash, another tinkle of broken glass.

Ariadne’s eyes went wide. _Bromios_ – the Roaring One – that was one of Dionysus’s wilder epithets, one that came out to play when gods or mortals had decided to tap-dance on his last nerve. If he was _Bromios_ …

As if on cue, police sirens wailed through the phone. “Oh, dear,” Semele murmured.

“What happened? Is Dionysus ok?” Ariadne asked.

“Oh, Dionysus, he is fine! The mortals—” A shriek cut Semele off; she picked up again as soon as it stopped. “They might not be fine, not for long.”

“ _SHIT!_ Text me the bar you’re at; I’ll be right there!” And Ariadne hung up.

Only to be faced with two shocked-looking parents.

_Oh. Shiiiit._

Ariadne’s mouth opened. And shut. And opened again. Because she had to explain this, somehow, but _how_?

Her phone buzzed – Semele, texting her the bar’s address – and that snapped her out of her stupor. “I—I have to go. Some mortals set Dionysus off, and I need to talk him down before—”

She broke off; she couldn’t look at Aziraphale or Crowley’s startled faces, so her eyes went to the timer on the oven instead, and—“ _SHIT_! My rolls!”

“I can get the rolls out of the oven, don’t worry about that,” Aziraphale said. “But what’s going on?”

“And what do you mean, _set him off_?” Crowley asked, twisting in his stool and somehow managing to send her a very hard look through the sunglasses.

“It—he—look, he’s a _god_ , and that means—” Ariadne’s phone buzzed again, and she realized she did not have time for this. “Never mind, I’ll explain when I get home, I—I’m sorry, but I just need to get there before the cops do!”

“Right. I’m coming with you,” Crowley said, swinging himself off the stool.

A good hostess would have told Crowley that he didn’t need to put himself out, that he should stay here and make himself comfortable and not worry about anything. Ariadne did not have the spare brain cells to be a good hostess right now. “You have experience outwitting the fuzz?”

Crowley just grinned.

“Great, let’s go!” Ariadne said, and didn’t even pause to grab her purse – she just snapped it into her hand and the wine out of her system before running for the car, Crowley hot on her heels and Aziraphale shouting, “Be careful!” at their retreating backs.

As they careened through the darkened streets, it occurred to Ariadne, vaguely, that she probably _should_ tell Crowley that this wasn’t what it looked like, that Dionysus had a rather long fuse for an Olympian god, and that it wouldn’t be just anything that set him off. But she didn’t have the words. And the sound of sirens – which might not have even meant what she was afraid it meant; this was LA; sirens were wailing morning, noon, and night – was too loud and too close for her to focus on anything other than _faster, faster_.

At least until the sirens suddenly cut off, accompanied by a frisson of power and a sense of mischief.

They came from the passenger seat. Ariadne took her eyes off the road long enough to stare at Crowley. “Did—did you—what did you do?”

He chuckled. “Just made a few alterations to a few engines of LA’s finest.”

She should have thanked him, but she didn’t have the energy to spare. Instead, she smiled – actually smiled – and floored it.

Finding the bar wasn’t hard. If Semele hadn’t texted her the location, Dionysus’s churning Presence would have led her to it as surely as any beacon. And if Dionysus had kept a lid on his Presence, the grape vines exploding out the door would have been a tip-off.

Ariadne miracled a space in front of the bar, threw the car into it, and barely waited to kill the engine before jumping out and running inside. She didn’t even check to make sure Crowley was following.

The vines parted before her—they always did; no matter how upset Dionysus was, no matter what had set him off, his vines never touched _her_ unless it was to get her out of the path of danger. She stumbled to a halt, looking around.

She knew this bar. Normally it was cozy and homey, with comfortable leather booths and tasteful wood-paneled walls. Now the walls were covered in vines. Every lightbulb in the place had exploded, replaced by strobing lightning. Alcohol and broken glass, shards of bottles and mirrors, covered the wood floors. Most of the barstools had been overturned, and the ones that hadn’t were little more than splinters and stuffing and shredded leather.

“Ari! Over here!” Semele called.

She was huddled by the bar, a mortal woman practically in her lap. The mortal looked about the same age Semele did[2], and her head lolled on Semele’s shoulder, her entire body slack. If she wasn’t unconscious, she was the next best thing to it.

Ariadne ran to Semele; the crunch of glass behind her telling her that Crowley was following. “What’s going on?”

“This girl,” Semele said, stumbling through the English that she was never entirely comfortable in at the best of times, “she—she come up to me, she ask me to pretend to be her friend, there were some men—”

It was all Ariadne could do not to groan. Garden-variety creepers, of course. But that didn’t explain what had set Dionysus off.

“But as she talk, I look at her, she no look good, and I sense at her, and she no _feel_ good, so I bring her to Dionysus, and he say—” Semele cut off with a wordless noise of frustration, oddly in time with a mortal-sounding scream. “I no understand what he say! Something about a roof!”

Ariadne sucked in a gasp as it all came together. Garden-variety creepers. An unconscious mortal woman. And Dionysus, raging.

“Roofie?” Crowley said, crouching by Ariadne’s side. “Is that what he said? A roofie?”

“Yes! Yes, that is it! What that mean?” Semele asked, looking between the two of them.

“Date-rape drug,” Ariadne said automatically, and then opened her mouth to repeat that in Greek.

She didn’t have to. Semele might not have heard the phrase _date-rape drug_ in English before, but she knew what the words meant singly. “ _Bdelyrós **[3]**_!” she swore, and Ariadne agreed wholeheartedly.

But knowing this only got her so far—

“Can you help her?” Semele asked, looking from Ariadne to Crowley and back again. Then, to Crowley, “The drugs, the wine, I can put _in_ , I can no take _out_ —”

“Yeah, no problem,” Crowley said—just before another shout tore the air.

“And I’ll get Dionysus calmed down,” Ariadne said, hopping up.

“You sure?” Semele asked, baring her teeth. “Those men, I think they deserve—”

“Probably, but we’ve already made one impromptu vineyard this year, so _yes_ ,” Ariadne said. And before anyone else could argue, she hurried deeper into the bar.

Between the vines and the screaming, Dionysus wasn’t hard to find. Still, Ariadne sucked in air when she did. His jacket had transformed into a leopard-skin chlamys; vine leaves sprouted from his hair along with a hint of horns. When he turned around, Ariadne knew his eyes would be full purple.

And the mortals – four of them, pinned to the wall with vines and struggling and screaming – weren’t looking much better. But they weren’t the ones she would be worrying about today.

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and pitched her voice to carry.

“ _DIONYSUS_!”

For a second, everything stopped. The snapping vines. The sirens of the cars that Crowley had left unmolested. The screaming mortals. Even the sparking lightning went quiet, though not dark.

Dionysus turned around.

His eyes were not just purple, but glowing, and his Presence was so strong it shimmered around him. “Ari,” he said. He still held one hand up, pinning the mortals in place with his fingers even though there were at least ten feet between him and them.

Ariadne didn’t tell him to calm down, and not just because never once in history had anyone responded to being told to calm down by doing so. Instead she picked her way past broken glass and vines to stand closer to him. “Enough is enough. Let them go so I can take you home.”

“Do you know what they did?” Dionysus demanded. His fingers flexed; the vines tightened; one of the mortals cried out.

“Yes.”

“They would have raped that girl. And they would have perverted _My_ gifts to do it.”

“I know,” Ariadne said. Rape was bad enough, but nothing made Dionysus go full _Bromlios_ quite like sacrilege.

Not that the mortals were smart enough to put all that together. One of them with more balls than brains shouted, “Dude! What the fuck are you—”

Dionysus whipped around; his Presence roared around them; his other hand came up—

Ariadne darted forward and grabbed his bicep.

Dionysus froze.

Slowly, he looked over his shoulder at her. “Ariadne.”

“Enough,” she repeated, “is enough.”

“Let go.”

“No.”

The lightning sparking in every plug and light fixture crackled, but it didn’t come near Ariadne; it wouldn’t dare. “You know they’ll do it again if I let them go.”

“No, they won’t.”

Dionysus’s nostrils flared, but Ariadne stared him down. “I have more faith in you than that,” she said softly. “You won’t let them hurt anyone else. But if they are dead, they learn nothing, and no one else learns from what happened to them.”

Dionysus glared at her, but Ariadne glared back, a silent dare him to find fault in what she’d said.

She didn’t think he would. A few hundred years ago, a thousand, two thousand – then, maybe, he could have argued, could have pointed out that a vengeful wine god leaving a trail of mortal bodies behind him was exactly the sort of lesson mortals were likely to heed. But he couldn’t say that anymore. Mortals did not believe in vengeful wine gods. If he killed these men, someone would find a “logical explanation,” and no one would learn anything, and nothing would be achieved.

Dionysus’s gaze dropped. Slowly, he brought down his hand, the one attached to the bicep Ariadne was holding.

Ariadne let go of his bicep and stepped back. But she held out her hand, an invitation.

Dionysus looked between Ariadne’s face and her hand, expression inscrutable. Then, swallowing, he took her hand and gently tugged her forward. “Well, sweetheart? What shall we do with these assholes?”

Ariadne pressed closer to Dionysus, head tilted to one side, pretending to think. After all, this wasn’t the first time Dionysus had presented a conundrum like this to her. They’d found a solution that worked for them long ago. “The girl they roofied tonight wasn’t the first one.”

“Certainly not,” Dionysus replied.

“So let them suffer as their victims have suffered,” Ariadne said. “Take those women’s anguish, the guilt, the fear, and give it to the men who gave it to them. And let them live with it until they admit what they’ve done and make restitution.”

Dionysus took a deep breath, nodded, and brought Ariadne’s hand to his lips for a quick, chaste kiss. Then he turned back to the assholes in the vines. “You heard the lady. What suffering you have dealt to others is now your burden until such a time as you have paid for the crimes you have committed. So I say, and so it shall be.”

And he brought his other hand down.

The four men hit the floor with four thuds. The vines slithered away, snaking back into the ground from whence they came. The lights flickered back into a cheerful yellow glow, glass whole and pristine, even as bottles reconstituted themselves and refilled and barstools stood up and put themselves back together.

And as the bar put itself to rights, so did Dionysus. The vines faded from his hair; his chlamys turned back into a jacket and jeans. Lastly, his eyes dimmed and shifted, from glowing purple to wine burgundy to warm brown.

When his eyes returned to normal, he blinked twice at Ariadne, like he couldn’t remember why she was there. Then his knees buckled, and he sagged.

Ariadne caught him. “It’s ok,” she said, letting go of his hand to put both arms around him. “It’s ok. You’re ok. Everything’s ok.”

Dionysus swallowed hard enough that she could hear it and nodded, leaning against her and breathing like he’d just run a marathon. After a moment – or maybe many moments – he pulled away enough to put both hands on her shoulders and look into her eyes. “Thanks.”

“No worries,” Ariadne said, patting his cheek. “Home?”

Dionysus nodded. They turned around, Dionysus holding out a hand and Ariadne taking it. Then—

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Dionysus muttered, staring at the bar.

Semele was still there, and so was the girl, perched on a barstool. The girl looked dazed, barely awake, even as she sipped obediently at the glass of water Semele held to her lips.

And Crowley was still there, hands shoved into too-small pockets, a small smile Ariadne couldn’t begin to read on his lips.

_Oh, SHIT,_ she thought, because how was she going to begin to explain this? _Sorry, Crowley, I swear my partner doesn’t normally get drunk and trash bars and come this close to murdering a bunch of rapists. Really, he hasn’t gone off like this in DECADES!_

She didn’t get a chance. “She won’t remember anything,” Crowley said, nodding to the girl. “But I left a bit of the roofie in her system. Just enough for the police to find.”

Dionysus nodded slowly. “Good—good thinking.”

The way he said that made Semele look up sharply; she all but slammed the water onto the counter before making a beeline for Dionysus and not stopping until she’d wrapped him in an embrace. Ariadne let go and stepped aside.

And nearly bumped into Crowley, who she hadn’t realized had ambled after Semele. “Whoa,” he said softly, one hand on her shoulder to steady her, there and gone almost before she could register it. Then, brows furrowed over the glasses, he asked, “You all right?”

“Oh, yeah, of course!” Ariadne said, nodding like that wasn’t a lie. “I’m fine. No worries here.”

Crowley’s eyebrow arched, but he didn’t argue.

Ariadne’s stomach twisted. “Sorry about—all this,” she said, gesturing around the bar. “Sure it’s not how you wanted to spend your trip …”

Crowley’s eyebrow arched even higher, but his reply was strangely gentle. “Don’t worry about it. Hardly your fault, eh?” A ghost of a smile crossed his face, then he nodded to the door. “Now let’s get out of here before the police show.”

Ariadne swallowed, nodded, and tapped Dionysus’s shoulder to get him moving. And as they headed toward the door and into the street, Ariadne took a deep breath.

That had been an episode, but they were fine. Dionysus was fine. The girl was fine. Semele was fine. The would-be rapists weren’t fine – they were still lying where they had fallen, two crying, one curled in a fetal position, another flat on his back and gazing blankly at the ceiling – but Ariadne didn’t give a damn about them. And the other bar patrons – the ones who had run out when Dionysus started raging – would have some strange stories to tell, but they too would be fine.[4] Crowley didn’t seem too upset, and Aziraphale hadn’t even seen the worst of it.

So it really was all fine.

Ariadne swallowed hard and wondered how many times she’d have to tell herself that before she started to believe it.

* * *

[1] Crowley had helped, too, although his helping was not mixing ingredients or kneading dough and was instead making sure their wineglasses stayed filled – which was a very necessary part of the process, so his assistance was much appreciated.

[2] Barely old enough to buy a drink.

[3] Bastard, and not the kind worth knowing.

[4] A snap of Ariadne’s fingers ensured that any cameras in the bar or on the street spontaneously erased all footage from the last half-hour, just to make sure the bar patrons’ stories didn’t have video evidence to back them up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tags to Mind**
> 
> **Homophobia** : Because this is America and homophobes grow in bakeries here like leaves grow on trees everywhere else, the baker at Ariadne's favorite bakery has some choice (but somewhat circumspect) remarks about Aziraphale and Crowley - particularly after Ariadne introduces them as her parents. Ariadne isn't having it, though, and informs the baker that he can keep his rolls and that she won't be coming back. 
> 
> If reading this will bother you, you'll want to stop reading at "Peter's voice was just this side of polite" and start reading again at "It was at that point that Ariadne realized."
> 
> (Also, all the love to any non-homophobic bakers who may be reading this. You keep being awesome and run those other assholes out of business with your delicious goodies.)
> 
> **Supernatural Violence, PTSD, Attempted Date Rape, Date Rape Drugs/Roofies** : These things are all interconnected, so it's easiest to just summarize them all at once. Ariadne and Crowley enter the bar to find it trashed, Semele huddling by the bar with an unconscious young woman. Semele tells Ariadne and Crowley that the woman had asked Semele to pretend to be her friend so she could ward off some creepy guys. Semele sensed that something wasn't right and brought her to Dionysus. Dionysus realized the young woman had been roofied and went berserk (hence Semele's frantic phone call). Ariadne leaves Crowley to miracle the roofie out of the young woman's system (Semele can't do it herself) and goes to calm Dionysus down.
> 
> She finds Dionysus still raging, pinning four men to the wall with his vines. Ariadne shouts his name to get his attention and, once he has it, tells him to let the men go. Dionysus resists this, pointing out that they'll just pull this stunt again, until Ariadne tells him that she has more faith in him than that - Dionysus won't let them hurt anyone else - and that killing these men won't solve anything, as humans will just come up with a logical explanation for their deaths. Dionysus reluctantly realizes she's right and asks Ariadne what they should do instead. Ariadne points out that it's highly unlikely that this is the men's first time victimizing a woman this way and suggests that these men should suffer as their victims have suffered until they admit what they've done and pay for their crimes. Dionysus agrees and makes it so, effectively giving the men PTSD.
> 
> If reading this would be upsetting to you, you'll want to stop reading at "The vines parted before her" and start up again at "The four men hit the floor." There are also short references to the roofie (namely Crowley leaving enough of it in the young woman's system for the police to find) and the men lying on the floor later, so if this topic is a complete no-go for you, you might want to just skip the rest of the chapter after "The vines parted before her."
> 
> **Miscellaneous Note**
> 
> **Semele's Speech Patterns** : I have written Semele as a non-native English speaker (she lives in Greece full-time, and since she started life as a normal human, she doesn't pick up languages as easily and seamlessly as the non-human characters). While she is able to speak and understand English well, she has an accent (that I did not attempt to write phonetically) and her English is not perfect, especially in times of high emotion. She also doesn't always know what slang terms (like roofie) mean. I based her speech patterns off some of my family members who are also non-native English speakers.


	3. Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is Thanksgiving Day, and everything is fine. Or at least, it starts out fine, until Dionysus wants to talk and then Hermes shows up in an ugly sweater with some off-color remarks, and even his normally polite mother Maia steps in it. But it will be fine. Ariadne just needs to make her pumpkin soup and get everything out on the table in one piece--except Hermes "made" the cranberry sauce and OH NO ...
> 
> Ariadne, as it turns out, is not fine. Not even a little bit fine.
> 
> Luckily, she has people around her who can help her be fine again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another **mind the tags** chapter. See the end notes for which tags to mind.

The turkey basted, Ariadne was just closing the oven when Dionysus said to her some of the most dreaded words in any relationship: “Ari, we need to talk.”

Ariadne’s back stiffened, her hackles rose, and then she forced herself to close her eyes and thank her lucky stars that he’d chosen a moment when they alone were in the kitchen for this. “I already told you, it’s fine. We’re fine. Everything worked out fine last night, right? You’re fine, the girl’s fine, Semele’s fine—”

“It’s not fine.”

She took a deep breath and turned around, steeling herself for the argument.

And deflated. Dionysus was leaning against the refrigerator, hair tousled and unusually pale. In one hand he had a glass of Gatorade (just Gatorade, nothing thrown in to make it more interesting); in the other he had a sleeve of saltine crackers which looked half-gone.

It was hard to be steely when Dionysus was so very hungover that he wasn’t even trying to chase it off with hair of the dog.

Although maybe she should have been. Dionysus pushed himself off the refrigerator with an ease a human half as hungover as he wouldn’t have managed, ambling towards the counter.

“I’m not fine,” he said.

He drained his Gatorade in one gulp and set the glass on the counter with a deliberate clink.

“And you’re not fine.”

Ariadne sighed and rolled her eyes. “Dionysus, for Ga—for _Someone’s_ sake.”

“You do not need to be putting this much effort into one meal,” Dionysus said. He let his eyes deliberately rake over the salad ingredients, which, true, still needed to be chopped and tossed; and her soup ingredients, which only needed to be combined to make the soup; the turkey, which just needed to be basted every half an hour until it was time to take it out of the oven; and the kolokithopita and the stuffed eggplant and the stuffing, which just needed to be popped into the oven to cook while the turkey was cooling and she made the gravy. And the soup.

“It’s Thanksgiving! You need to cook a lot of food for Thanksgiving! That’s the whole point!”

“ _Mortals_ need to cook a lot of food for Thanksgiving. _We_ have other methods.”

“You can’t just pull it out of thin air! It never tastes the same! And you know that,” she hissed.

Dionysus raised an eyebrow. Then, deliberately, he snapped his fingers at the salad ingredients, the kolokithopita, the stuffed eggplant, and the stuffing. The vegetables chopped and assembled themselves in the bowl, and the kolokithopita, stuffed eggplant, and stuffing instantly smelled fully cooked and ready to serve. And Ariadne had to take a deep breath and remind herself that even if all that food sat out at room temperature until it was serving time, it would still look and taste just as it would have if she had prepared it all by hand with impeccable timing, because Dionysus would accept nothing less.

Dionysus’s hand moved toward the soup ingredients, and Ariadne gasped. “Don’t you _dare_.”

For a minute he froze, hand outstretched, while Ariadne glared daggers at him from across the kitchen. Then he sighed and let his hand drop. “I’m taking over the turkey. And the gravy,” he said in a tone that left no room for negotiation.

Ariadne glared. “It needs to be basted every thirty to forty-five minutes. And the gravy—”

“It will be perfect. _Everything_ will be perfect.” Dionysus gestured to the oven, and Ariadne knew that even if he didn’t set foot in the kitchen from now until it was time to put the turkey on the table, everything would be. Somehow.

She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, closing her eyes. “Cheater.”

“I prefer to think of it as winning creatively.” Dionysus loped around the counter and put both hands on her shoulders, rubbing them and her upper arms gently. “Besides, it’s just us. Just family. None of this has to be perfect. We’d all be pinching ourselves and waiting for the other shoe to drop if it was.”

Ariadne snorted. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Confidence has nothing to do with it.” He stepped back but didn’t let go. Ariadne opened her eyes to find his burgundy-tinted ones watching her with no small amount of concern. “You need to relax.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m hosting Thanksgiving. Relaxing is not on the agenda.”

“ _We’re_ hosting Thanksgiving. The agenda has been updated.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “And I mean it. You’ve been on edge for days. Whatever you’re so afraid of …”

He left the sentence there, trailing delicately in the air between them. Ariadne swallowed, her lips parting. Something needed to be said; she was going to have to be the one to say it; and with Dionysus looking at her like that, there would be no prevarication—

_Ding-dong!_

“And that would be Hermes and Maia!” she said, trying not to sound half as relieved as she felt. She fumbled with her apron until she could pull it off and ball it on the counter, then patted her hair, her sweater, her skirt. “Well? How do I look?”

Dionysus smiled and kissed her forehead again. “Beautiful.”

_DING-DONG!_

He leaned back, rolling his eyes. “And my brother is an ass.”

“News at eleven,” she muttered. “But we love him anyway.”

“We—”

_DIIIIIIIIING—_

Dionysus cut the doorbell off with a gesture. “We’re _coming_ , asshole!” And he suited the action to the word, Ariadne following close behind.

When they arrived in the foyer, Aziraphale was hovering in the door the living room, wringing his hands. “Er, I didn’t want to impose, but—”

“Relax,” Dionysus said. “My brother is just a jerk who thinks that patience is for chumps. You should know this; you’ve met him.” He threw open the door.

And froze.

Ariadne tried to see around him, but didn’t have a chance before Dionysus spoke. “What,” he asked, “are you _wearing_?”

“Brother!” Hermes said. Ariadne still couldn’t see what he was wearing, but the arm he threw around Dionysus was clad in a gold-ish sweater sleeve with “49ers” emblazoned on the elbow, so she could guess. “Happy Thanksgiving! So good to see you!”

“I wish I could say the same, but my seared retinas beg to differ.” Dionysus’s words were biting, but his hug was long and tight. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

Hermes pulled away with a theatrical sigh, then ducked forward and hugged Ariadne. “Hi, Ariadne. Where can I put the cranberry sauce?”

Ariadne’s reply was to snap the fingers of her free hand and lean into the hug – if only so she wouldn’t have to look at Hermes’s gold-and-red cardigan, which was indeed retina-searing.[1] “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Happy Thanksgiving. And you!” He poked Dionysus. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, little brother, I’d say you have no sense of appreciation for a classic NFL ugly sweater.”

“NFL …?” Aziraphale asked, looking over his shoulder at—oh, Crowley had appeared, leaning against the other side of the doorway, hands in his pockets.

“Football,” Ariadne explained.

Aziraphale blinked and beamed. “Oh, _football_! My goodness, I haven’t really had time to follow it in years, but I am still a bit partial to Liverpool F.C. Which team do you—”

“Aziraphale!” Hermes beamed and practically tackled the poor angel in a hug. “Good to see you, old friend! And Crowley, too!” He made no move to hug Crowley, maybe because Crowley smiled in a way that suggested Hermes might well get bitten if he tried. “Anyway, I’m talking about _real_ football, not that ridiculous European soccer crap. American gridiron! Grr! And speaking of—Dionysus, the game is on! Why is the TV off?”

“Because we’re not watching that dreck in my house,” Dionysus said, as he did every year that they hosted Thanksgiving.

“Don’t be silly! Your team is playing – Cowboys vs. Bills this year! You should get to watch your boys squish the buffalos flat.”

Dionysus threw his head back and groaned. “I wore a Cowboys sweater _one time_ —”

“And I will never, ever let you forget it. Come on!” Hermes charged into the living room, dragging Dionysus in his wake.

“No point! We don’t get that channel!”

“You get all the channels!”

“Not the sports ones!”

“HA! Joke’s on you, kid, the game’s on CBS! Ah, Semele! There you are!”

The whirlwind passed, leaving Ariadne, Crowley, and Aziraphale gasping in its wake – literally in Aziraphale’s case.

And leaving Maia, standing proud and tall and ethereal as always – but well, she was one of the Pleiades, the star-daughters of Atlas, so of course she shone in any light.

She was smiling now and shaking her head. “Boys,” she said simply.

“Boys,” Ariadne agreed.

“And how are you?” Maia asked, stepping forward and shutting the door behind her with a gesture. She wasn’t carrying anything, and Ariadne had to wonder if she had inadvertently sent Maia’s desserts off with Hermes’s cranberry sauce or if Maia had done it herself.

“Good, how are—” Ariadne was cut off with a squeak as she was swept into a hug that was much tighter and longer than she was used to receiving from Maia.

… Right. They hadn’t seen each other since spring. And a lot had happened since then.

Maia pulled away first (Ariadne couldn’t have even if she’d had the presence of mind to), her gaze sweeping over Ariadne with an expression Ariadne couldn’t read. Then she smiled, patted Ariadne’s cheek, and turned to the living room. “You must be Ariadne’s parents. I’m Maia of the Pleiades,” she said, holding out a hand.

Ariadne barely had a moment to panic before Aziraphale stepped forward, all smiles. “A pleasure to meet you, my dear. I’m Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate, and this is—”

“Anthony J. Crowley,” said the demon himself, stepping forward to shake Maia’s hand in turn. Then, in a somewhat lower, more curious tone, he asked, “You said the Pleiades?”

“Ah, you’re familiar with my sisters and me?” she asked.

“In a manner of speaking. The Greeks seemed to think you literally were stars.”

Maia chuckled. “Not literally. But we always had a thing or two to do with the heavens.” And they wandered into the living room, leaving Ariadne looking after them and feeling like there was something here that she was missing.

At least until Aziraphale spoke. “Everything all right, dear girl?”

Ariadne jumped. “What—I—oh, yes, of course! I’m fine, everything’s fine! G—Somebody, where are my manners?” She laughed, or tried to, and shepherded Aziraphale back into the living room.

Where Hermes was standing in front of the TV, his shocked face bathed in the blue light, while Dionysus stood next to him with his eyebrows slightly arched. “Did the Bills just … _score_?” Hermes asked the room at large.

“Oh, woe is me, my team is losing. I cannot bear to watch,” Dionysus said—and snatched the remote from Hermes’s slack grip and switched the channel to AMC.

“Hey!” Hermes said, snatching it back. “Watch it, kid—you keep protesting the football this much, and people will start to think you’re, I dunno, _gay_ or something.”

Dionysus’s only reply to that was a raised eyebrow – as it always was, since the joke was that Hermes and Dionysus were roughly the same amount of straight.[2]

But, Ariadne realized with a sinking stomach, Crowley and Aziraphale might not know that—and after the bakery yesterday—

Ariadne’s mouth opened to explain this, but she didn’t get a chance. “Boys!” That was Semele, standing up – and handing them plates with veggies and tzatziki. “Eat food, sit down, pretend to be civilized! We are not _barbaroi_.”

“Yes, Mamá,” Dionysus said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Hermes echoed.

And that was fine. Ariadne took a deep breath. It was fine. Everything was _just fine_. Except—

Ariadne looked around the room, and—no, there was no place for her to sit. Well, there was a spare couch cushion between Crowley and Aziraphale, but the three of them would be shoved in there like sardines, and surely Aziraphale and Crowley wouldn’t be comfortable. So she perched on the arm of the couch Dionysus was sharing with Hermes instead.

Dionysus blinked up at her, and a slow grin spread across his face—a grin that told Ariadne she was about five seconds from being pulled into his lap—but then his gaze slid past her, toward the couch where her parents sat, and the grin vanished. He instead shot her a rueful smile and patted her knee.

And they might have settled in to watch the game – or watch Dionysus and Hermes tussle over the remote, which was far more entertaining than any football game – except Hermes’s phone buzzed. He fished it out of his pocket, and his eyebrows arched. “Well, _hello_.”

“What?” Dionysus asked.

“It’s the ol’ weird sh—” Hermes broke off, glancing beyond Ariadne at his mother—or maybe at Crowley and Aziraphale, who were on the couch next to the armchair Maia had taken. “Um. Weird _stuff_ feed. Looks like there was a bar in downtown LA that sprouted a bunch of vines last night—”

Ariadne felt all the air in her lungs leave at once, but before she could faint or panic or consign Hermes’s phone to the fires of Hell, Semele sat up and snapped her fingers. “Ah-ah! No phones! Family time!”

It was enough to distract Hermes. “ _Family_ time?” He turned to Semele with a raised eyebrow and an incredulous expression. “You mean like an argument?[3] Oooh!” He looked around the room, bouncing a little in his seat, eyes lighting up like a kid on Christmas. “We could get into a _good_ one! Let’s see, shall we start with religion or politics?”

“Hermes—” Dionysus started.

But Hermes wasn’t going to let him finish. Instead, his gaze fell on Aziraphale and Crowley, and he grinned.

“ _Religion_.”

Dionysus punched him in the arm.

As Hermes sprawled back with a theatrical cry of pain, Maia turned to Crowley and deadpanned, “Forgive my son. I would say I raised him better than that, but when your newborn uses what should have been his first naptime as ‘cattle-stealing time,’ you don’t so much _raise_ him as simply hang on for dear life.”

Crowley snickered, even as Hermes called out, “Hey! If Apollo couldn’t keep his cows safe from one measly baby, he didn’t deserve to have them!”

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s eyes lit up, and he leaned forward. “That story is actually true? Forgive me, I had heard the tale, but I had thought that the humans were, er, exaggerating a tad—”

“Exaggerating?!” Hermes gasped. “The tales of my greatness? If anything, the mortals understated it!”

Maia rolled her eyes and shook her head. “He was a handful from the beginning,” she said fondly, smiling at her son. Then her eyes sparked, and she turned back to Crowley and Aziraphale. “Was Ariadne precocious like that?”

The temperature in the room plunged at least ten degrees, maybe twenty, even as every inch of Ariadne’s skin felt like it had caught fire.

Crowley’s mouth opened and shut like a gulping fish’s, and Aziraphale flinched slightly and began to wring his hands together. “Ah—ah, well, you see, unfortunately, we—that is to say—”

“The turkey!” Ariadne said, jumping to her feet.

Every single eye in the room fell on her. If she’d had a smidge more power or imagination, the floor might have actually opened up and swallowed her in that moment.

“It—um—it needs to be basted. I’ll be back!” she said, and she fled to the kitchen – not quite like a literal Hellhound was after her, but close.

She stumbled through the door and didn’t stop moving until she ran into the counter, which she half-collapsed against, panting. She was—she was being an _idiot_ , and that was all there was to it—but—but she still had so much to do—she reached for her apron—

Ariadne was still fumbling with the ties when a heavy tread sounded down the hallway and the kitchen door opened, spilling Dionysus into the room. “Ari—”

“Right—you’re doing the turkey, sorry!” she said. “But I—my soup! I need to get my soup started!”

It was only then that she dared to look at Dionysus. He was watching her with wide eyes and more than a hint of alarm.

Ariadne swallowed hard and tried to smile. She didn’t think she managed it very well.

Slowly, Dionysus closed the door. Slowly, he nodded. “Ok,” he said. He leaned against the doorpost. “Would you like some company?”

Ariadne opened her mouth, but no words came out. She could only stare until her brain, and her duties as a hostess, caught up to her. “We—we can’t leave very well leave our guests to shift for themselves, can we?”

Dionysus didn’t answer at first. His eyes shifted to burgundy and he shoved his hands into his pockets, letting the doorpost take most of his weight. Ariadne could only stand the scrutiny for so long before she blushed, looked away, and busied herself hunting down the knives and the cutting board.

That seemed to decide Dionysus. “Ok,” he said. “I’ll be back when it’s time to check on the turkey. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will,” she said, finally finding what she needed and beginning to slice the mushrooms.

For a moment there was no sound in the room but that of the knife hitting the wooden cutting board, until Dionysus spoke. “Ari?”

She looked up.

“It’s going to be delicious.” With that, he blew her a kiss and was gone.

And it was _fine_. Ariadne was _fine_. Even if it wasn’t fine – which it was – it would have _become_ fine, because there was something soothing about slicing mushrooms and chopping onions.[4] About sauteing and combining them with the flour, the curry powder, the broth and the pumpkin and all the rest. About watching flour and vegetables and spices and liquid transform into something greater than the sum of the parts. There was magic here, a power simpler and greater than any in her meager possession.

Although she must have been taking forever with the soup. After all, the turkey only needed to be basted every half-hour, but if she’d been moving at anything like her normal speed, Dionysus would have been checking on it every five minutes.

Still, by some miracle – perhaps literal, though Ariadne couldn’t remember nudging the universe in that direction – her soup was just about done just as Dionysus took the turkey out of the oven. And though the turkey should have sat for another half an hour, a snap of Dionysus’s fingers cut the waiting time down to a split second. Another series of gestures put everything out on the dining room table – except the soup.

Ariadne had just enough time to remove the apron, pat herself down, and snap away any flyaways or still-smudged makeup before she took the heavy pot of soup and made her way into the dining room.

The family had already gathered around the table, no one sitting down yet, and for a second – just a second – Ariadne let herself feel a flicker of pride. Her whole family, about to sit down to a feast that she had—well, she’d certainly _arranged_ if not quite _prepared_ —

“Where’s my cranberry sauce?” Hermes was asking. “Oh, there!” And he took the cover off the dish he’d used to bring it in.

Aziraphale was standing next to him; he gazed into the dish curiously. “Oh! That’s intriguing. Is it—is it an aspic?” He tilted his head to the side. “From an … antique mold?”

“What?” Hermes asked. “Nah, dude, it’s cranberry sauce!”

“Those ridges,” Crowley said, actually lowering his sunglasses enough to look at the cranberry sauce over them, “they almost make it look like a tin can …?”

“Well, duh!” Hermes laughed. “Where do you think the cranberry sauce comes from?”

Crowley blinked—and guffawed. “Oh, I need a picture of this!”

But Aziraphale.

Aziraphale was staring at the cranberry sauce.

And then at Hermes.

In _horror_.

Ariadne gasped.

_THE CRANBERRY SAUCE I FORGOT THE CRANBERRY SAUCE HERMES CAN’T COOK HE ALWAYS GETS IT FROM A CAN AZIRAPHALE LOVES FOOD AND THE CRANBERRY SAUCE **CAME FROM** **A CAN—**_

Her fingers went slack.

_Crash!_

_SPLASH!_

The pot was on the floor, wobbling from side to side, pumpkin soup sprayed all over the room and – if the heat on her front was anything to judge by – all over her as well.

“My soup,” she whispered.

“Ariadne!”

Ariadne looked up.

Everyone – _everyone_ – was looking at her. Semele, who had called her name, stared with huge eyes and both hands over her mouth. Dionysus’s eyes were as huge as his mother’s, and his gaze wouldn’t stop raking over Ariadne. Hermes’s jaw had fallen, and even Maia looked surprised.

And her parents—Aziraphale still looked horrified, Crowley too, only now they were looking horrified _at her_ —

“I’ll—I’ll make more! Just—hold on!” Ariadne said, grabbing the pot – the potholders were long gone and the edges were still hot, but who _cared_ – and she ran back into the kitchen.

She just—she just had to make the soup again. Yes, yes, that was it. Dionysus could clean up the mess in the dining room; he wouldn’t mind, and if she were fast and used magic to help her along—

“ _ARI_!” The kitchen door flew open and Dionysus spilled inside. When their eyes met, his face crumbled in an expression she couldn’t read. “Oh, _sweetheart_.”

For a second, Ariadne could only look at him. And then she shook her head. “Can you chop onions?”

“Ari—”

“Or—or the mushrooms? Can you cut those? That takes the most time, except—oh, _fuck_! PUMPKIN! I only had one can of pumpkin!” Ariadne put her hand to her head, a quiet mental voice wondering at the stickiness and the twinge of pain—

But she didn’t have _time_ for that!

“Ariadne,” Dionysus said, taking a slow step forward, like she was a tantruming toddler or an injured animal that might snap.

“Do I have enough broth?” she asked, whirling around and flinging the pantry door open. “Maybe—maybe another kind of soup! I can—I can improvise! It doesn’t matter if it’s pumpkin, right?”

“Sweetheart—”

“I know I have extra curry powder, maybe some—I don’t know—gods, it’s _Thanksgiving_ , why is there no _food_ in this house?!”

“Ariadne!” He said it sharply enough that Ariadne jumped and turned to him, blinking. “Sweetheart,” he said, more softly, “sweetheart, we can fix the soup. Can—can you just come here a minute? It was very hot, and it got all over you.”

Ariadne raised an eyebrow at him, wondering why in— _Somebody’s_ name that mattered. And then she realized what he’d suggested, and gasped. “You mean just—just snap your fingers and—” She tried to snap and yelped when that _hurt_. But she kept talking. “And—and put the soup back in the pot? It’ll taste like _floor polish_ if you do that! And …” She looked down at the pumpkin soup that covered her sweater and her skirt and her stockings. “And my sweater! It’ll taste like floor polish and my sweater! Damn it, Dionysus! Is that what you want?!?”

“We can fix that, too,” he said, very gently, taking a slow step toward her. “Just—just hold still for a second, honey, and I’ll get everything fixed.”

Ariadne blinked at him—and shook her head; clearly Dionysus had no sense of priorities. She needed to make more soup, good soup, the _best_ soup she’d ever made, if she was going to make up for the spilled pumpkin soup and the cranberry sauce and Hermes’s and Maia’s stupid remarks and the bar and the homophobes at the bakery and her knee-jerk reactions to Christmas songs and—

Except when she tried to grab a can from the pantry, she cried out and dropped it because that _hurt_ , why did her hand _hurt_ , and how was she going to make more soup when her hand _hurt_ —

“ARIADNE. FREEZE.”

Ariadne froze. Because it wasn’t Dionysus who had shouted at her.

It was Semele.

She looked over her shoulder. And there was Semele, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. And not alone.

In each of her hands she held someone by the elbow, and one of those someones was Aziraphale, and the other was Crowley.

And both were staring at her in shock.

Ariadne’s mouth opened—to apologize, to explain, to reassure them that everything was under control, she just needed a minute—but she didn’t get a chance to do any of that.

“You two,” Semele somehow shoved Aziraphale and Crowley forward, “talk! To your daughter! And you— _out_!”

“Mamá, now is not the— _ow_!” Dionysus yelped as Semele—did she grab him by the ear? Whatever she did, somehow Dionysus was stumbling out of the room, led by Semele, and then they were gone and the door had slammed behind them and Ariadne was alone with her parents and had _no_ idea what to say, and they didn’t seem to know either—

“Oh, my dear girl,” Aziraphale said, recovering first—Crowley was just standing stock-still and staring at her—and hurrying toward her. “This won’t do at all.”

Ariadne flinched, and something in her cracked, because if Aziraphale, the nice one, was saying she wouldn’t do at all, then _clearly_ she’d fucked this up beyond all hope of recovery—

He didn’t say anything more, just tutting under his breath and taking one of her hands gently in his. He passed his other hand over it, and—her hand didn’t hurt anymore …

He took the other hand and did the same thing. That hand didn’t hurt anymore, either. And then he passed that hand over the rest of her, not touching her, leaving a good inch of space, and when he did—nothing hurt anymore, her hair wasn’t sticky, and her sweater and her skirt and even her stockings looked fresh from the dry cleaners—

“There,” Aziraphale said, smiling a little in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. “No more burns. That’s much better, isn’t it?”

Ariadne blinked. And gulped. And hiccupped.

And burst into tears.

“Oh! Oh, my _dear_ girl …” There might have been more after that, or it might have all been nonsense phrases and shushing sounds, but Ariadne couldn’t tell. Her entire awareness had narrowed to the arms wrapping around her and pulling her in, the one hand rubbing her shoulder and the other rubbing soothing circles on her back – a hug that brooked no argument.

Not that Ariadne could have argued even if she’d wanted to. Her body was too busy blubbering noisily and messily onto Aziraphale’s antique jacket (as if she needed another embarrassment) to let her do anything remotely useful.

And the worst of it was that Ariadne didn’t _want_ to argue. This was, stupidly, even better than the hug Aziraphale had given her at the airport, because _that_ could be explained away as Aziraphale just being friendly and affectionate, whereas this felt like—like—

What it felt _like_ was too much for her to begin to cope with. Ariadne sobbed harder, her fingers curling in Aziraphale’s jacket, to the point where he made a small, distressed sound and his hug somehow got tighter.

Ariadne might have coped with that. Or more accurately, she might have wallowed in that. But then something happened that she couldn’t cope with, or wallow in.

A third hand landed on her, this one gently petting her hair. And that knocked some sense into her.

_For the love of SOMEONE, Ariadne, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!_ She took deep, gulping breaths, fingers curling more tightly in Aziraphale’s jacket (she couldn’t help it), until she’d forced enough of the sobs down to finally say something. It wasn’t much, but it was what was important.

“I’m s-s-s-sorry!”

Silence. No, not quite. Aziraphale made another of those distressed noises. But he wasn’t the one who spoke.

Crowley was.

“Ssssorry?” The _s_ was dragged out almost – but not quite – to the point where it beggared belief. “What are you sssorry for?”

And he didn’t sound sarcastic. If anything, he sounded bewildered. But _why_?

Ariadne forced herself to swallow, to breathe, to stuff the sobs down far enough that they couldn’t escape. “F-f-f-for everything’s that’s gone w-w-wrong since you got off the p-p-plane!”

“… What?” Crowley asked.

“The b-b-bakery,” Ariadne stammered, “and the r-r-rolls, and the b-b-bar last night, and t-t-today, Hermes and Maia and their d-d-dumb remarks, and Hermes’s c-c-cranberry sauce, and, and, and—my _soup_! I c-c-couldn’t even get my s-s-soup—”

“Right,” Aziraphale interrupted. “Ariadne, I think you need to sit down.”

Except there was no _think_ about it. Before Ariadne was quite aware of what was happening, she was being ushered to the table in the breakfast nook and gently but inexorably urged into a chair. “Sit tight, dear, I’ll make some cocoa. Crowley, sit with her.”

“C-c-cocoa?” Ariadne repeated, like an idiot, even as Crowley gingerly sat himself down next to her. Then her hostess brain reengaged, and she tried to get up. “The K-K-Keurig—”

Crowley laid one finger on her wrist and raised an eyebrow at her. “He’s not going to use the Keurig.”

“B-b-but—but that’s easiest—”

A corner of Crowley’s mouth twitched in something that might have been the distant cousin of a smile. “Don’t worry, he’ll manage. Now sit.”

Ariadne sat. And twiddled her thumbs. And absently rubbed one eye. And shuddered, because she felt like a mess—

“Here,” Crowley said, holding out a handkerchief.

Ariadne stared at it and swallowed. “I—my makeup will ruin it—”

“So?”

She watched Crowley closely, stared even, but even with the sunglasses, she could see no sign that Crowley was anything but sincere. Slowly, she took it and wiped her eyes and her face.

And when she was done, Aziraphale was bustling over with something that certainly smelled like hot cocoa. “Here we are! Drink up, dear, this will help restore you.”

“Th-thanks,” Ariadne said, or tried to say, before she broke off and stared at the cup in front of her. It certainly smelled like hot cocoa. It looked like hot cocoa, too, with marshmallows in it. But the mug she didn’t recognize, at all – it was white and tall, and the handle was—were those angel wings?

Crowley made a short, strangled sort of sound. “Angel. _Ssseriously_?”

“Well, I don’t know where she keeps the mugs!”

“The mu—” Ariadne said, and started to get up, like a good hostess should.

“Sit!” Crowley put a hand on her shoulder. “And drink. You need the hydration.”

Not seeing any other path open before her, Ariadne sat. And drank.

And Crowley didn’t take his hand off her shoulder. She might have leaned into it a little. Maybe. It was probably the hot cocoa, relaxing her muscles against her will.

Aziraphale’s hand ended up on her other shoulder, rubbing it lightly, and Ariadne was in trouble, because she couldn’t lean in both directions at once. “Now, my dear,” he said softly. Then, after a second of hesitation, “My _dear_ girl. Why don’t you tell us what’s wrong?”

Ariadne blinked. “B-b-b-but I did.”

“You said you were sorry – and then you mentioned a bunch of different things that you were, I’m assuming, sorry _for_ – but that doesn’t really tell us what’s wrong,” Crowley said. “Because, while I am not an expert on apologizing, I do know a thing or two about placing blame, and I’m not sure what in that list was your fault.”

Ariadne stared at him. Crowley was smart; how was he _not getting_ this? But she didn’t have time to do more than stare before Aziraphale started to speak.

“You mentioned the bakery, but while the, er, gentleman there was quite rude, you certainly didn’t have any control over his actions – and you rather forcefully told him off and refused to patronize his establishment further, which would more than outweigh anything he attempted to say. I’ll admit that I’m not quite sure what about the rolls you’re sorry for; I for one enjoy baking and Crowley rarely minds playing bartender. As for the bar …” Aziraphale hesitated, and then said, “Really, I think the people who did wrong there were those dreadful young men, and while Dionysus may have _slightly_ overreacted—”

“We lived through Sodom and Gomorrah,” Crowley interrupted. “On the scale of godly overreactions, this doesn’t even rank in the top ten. Possibly not the top twenty.”

“B-b-but Hermes—and even _Maia_ —”

“Aren’t you,” Crowley pointed out. “And even if they were—well, I wasn’t particularly upset or offended by anything they said. You, angel?”

“Maia’s comment about, er, infant precocity was a little awkward,” Aziraphale said, not quite meeting either of their eyes, “but it certainly was not hurtful, and I strongly doubt she meant to give any kind of offense.”

“And the c-c-cranberry sauce?” Ariadne whispered. She threw her elbows on the table and buried her head in her hands. “And my _soup_!”

There was a short pause, then Crowley said, “Er … what about the cranberry sauce?”

Ariadne didn’t answer him. Instead she dared half a glance at Aziraphale. “You like food.”

“Well, yes, but …” Aziraphale shifted awkwardly in his seat. “I’ll admit the presentation is not something I’m familiar with, but I’m sure it would taste just fine.”

“And even if it didn’t, the angel could either fix it, or—well, it’s not like there’s a lack of options on that table. Same with your soup. We could fix it, and even if we couldn’t, nobody is going home hungry.”

Ariadne squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head. And in a small voice – small enough that she wasn’t sure they would hear her, equally not sure if she wanted them to – she admitted, “I just wanted to give you a good Thanksgiving.”

For a moment, she thought maybe they hadn’t heard her, for neither of them said anything. Then Crowley asked quietly, “Good … or perfect?”

Ariadne looked up and blinked. “… Does it make a difference?”

“Well, yes, it does, quite a bit,” Crowley said. “ _Good_ takes a lot less effort than _perfect_. Good …” He swallowed, then leaned back, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and— _took off his sunglasses_. “Ariadne, you invited us into your home not even three months after we got you shot at and—and discorporated, and nearly _killed_. It—you could feed us microwave TV dinners on a tray in the living room, like something out of a sixties sitcom, and it would be the best fucking Thanksgiving either of us have ever hand. And not just because we’re English.”

There was—there was too much there for Ariadne to react to, let alone unpack, so she seized on the easiest one. “You—you didn’t get me shot at or dis—”

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale said quietly, but firmly enough that Ariadne turned to him, “we most certainly did. We …” He swallowed. “We brought you into this world into an unconscionably dangerous situation, and when I attempted to give you some measure of protection—”

“We,” Crowley interrupted. “When _we_ tried to protect you.”

“No, _I_ ,” Aziraphale repeated, “When _I_ tried to ensure you were protected – Crowley having already done all he could on that score – I failed. You were physically safe, at least from _our_ enemies, but I fear … and you don’t have to talk about it,” Aziraphale said, gently patting the hand of hers that was closest to him, “not now, not ever if you don’t want to, but you weren’t happy. You weren’t cared for the way you ought to have been. And I’m to blame for that. I could have, and should have, chosen better.”

Ariadne’s breath hitched, and—and she wasn’t ready to start crying, not again. She took a few gulps of her cocoa (now more warm than hot) to force the sobs down. It seemed to work, for when she put the mug down, she was able to say, “That w-wasn’t your fault.”

“Funny,” Crowley murmured. “I could, and _have_ , say the same thing about you and homophobic bakers – idiots in bars – in-laws with permanent foot-in-mouth disease …” He cocked an eyebrow. “Need I go on?”

Ariadne wanted to protest, to point out that this wasn’t the same thing, that Aziraphale and Crowley had been trying to keep her alive when there were, to the best of their knowledge, ten million angels and ten million demons who’d want her dead the moment they found out she existed, and they hadn’t exactly been expecting her to show up, whereas all _she_ was trying to do was put together a visit that wasn’t a total disaster …

She didn’t get a chance to.

“And you know,” Crowley went on, sunglasses still off but not meeting her or anyone else’s eyes, “I happen to know a thing or two about not being good enough. Or being told in rather unmistakable terms that I’m not good enough. By someone who—” He took a deep breath. “By a, shall we say, parental figure who _really_ has no business saying any such thing, if She is who and what She says She is.”

He turned to her quite suddenly, those yellow cat’s eyes – snake’s eyes? – transfixing her in place.

“Believe me when I say that there is _nothing_ you could do that would lead me to do that to _you_. Ever.”

Ariadne’s jaw fell, and once again her breath hitched. But once again, she didn’t have a chance to say anything.

“And that is true for me as well, dear girl,” Aziraphale said, voice thick and smile as wobbly as it was watery. “I’m very much afraid you’re stuck with us for as long as you care to have us around.”

Once again, Ariadne blinked. And gulped. And hiccupped. And burst into tears.

But this time, when she tipped into Aziraphale’s arms – not even waiting for him to grab her and hug her whether she would or no – it didn’t feel like a dam breaking. Like shame or failure.

It felt like coming home.

* * *

In the end, Ariadne wasn’t sure how long she hid in the kitchen. And – even though it said nothing good about her hosting instincts – she didn’t particularly care. The people she had been most worried about offending or impressing were hiding in there with her, and neither showed any sign of wanting to be anywhere else.

Ariadne wasn’t sure she entirely understood why. Intellectually, yes, she understood in that sense; after all, her parents had not abandoned her on a hillside to safeguard _themselves_ from a terrible fate, but had tried to find her a good home to safeguard _her_ from a terrible fate. But underneath the intellect, in the darker, murkier layers of her mind …

Ariadne didn’t understand. And that was all right. She didn’t need to understand, not right now. She could accept without understanding.

Eventually, they got hungry. Or Ariadne did. And Aziraphale probably was, though he was too polite to say so. So they – or rather, Ariadne – decided it was time to emerge.

“You don’t have to go out there if you don’t want to,” Crowley said, even as they walked to the door. “We could get some food for you, bring it in here.”

“No, it’s fine,” Ariadne said automatically. Then paused and reassessed that statement. “That is—let me put it like this. They’ve seen me worse. And I’ve seen _them_ worse.” The chuckle that came next was a bit forced but not entirely unfelt. “I mean, do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to bail Dionysus and Hermes out of jail?”

“Pffft, you got them out just by paying bail? That’s nothing,” Crowley said, putting an arm around her shoulders as he put his sunglasses back on. “Remind me someday to tell you about the time your father landed himself on death row because of crepes, and _I_ had to bust him out.”

Ariadne stopped dead and stared at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and sighed. “It is not what it sounds like.”

“It is _exactly_ what it sounds like,” Crowley cackled.

The bickering might have gone on for a while, except Ariadne lived in a home that made basic architectural sense – so the dining room and the kitchen weren’t far from each other.

And the minute they entered the dining room, all conversation ceased.

“Ari!” That was Dionysus, springing to his feet – and still steady on them, which was an especially good thing given the four empty bottles of wine on the table[5] – and hurrying over to her. He was barely in arm’s reach before he swept her into a hug, long and tight.

Ariadne closed her eyes and gave as good as she got.

Eventually Dionysus pulled away – but only so he could see Ariadne properly, watching her face with no small hint of concern. Ariadne smiled up at him, a small smile but a real one.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. I—I’m a little more out of my own head now.”

“Good.” Dionysus brushed a curl out of her face, then looked up and smiled ruefully at her parents. “Thanks.”

He didn’t say for what. But Aziraphale smiled, straightened his waistcoat, and replied, “Our pleasure, dear boy.”

There were three seats left at the table, all in a row. Ariadne probably should have taken the one next to Semele and let Aziraphale and Crowley sit together. But she didn’t feel like doing that, so instead she took the middle one and let Aziraphale and Crowley fall in around her. Neither of them seemed to mind.

It wasn’t until she sat that Ariadne had a good look at the food – the turkey, uncarved; the salad, still in its bowl; the kolokithopita and stuffed eggplant and stuffing, still in their dishes; the dinner rolls, still in their basket; the cranberry sauce, still jiggling. Even the pot of soup sat unmolested – someone must have fixed it (and teleported the pot into the dining room) when she wasn’t paying attention. “Oh, you didn’t have to wait!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Maia said, and while her words had not a hint of nonsense in them, her tone was warm. “We weren’t going to start without you.”

“Nobody eats until we’re all at the table. Family rule,” Hermes said with a rueful half-smile.

“Although drinking,” Semele said, raising her wineglass, “that is allowed.”

“A toast?” Dionysus said, lifting his own wineglass. “To family?”

Somehow all of their wineglasses were full – and somehow none of the not-emptied bottles of wine grew any emptier – and Aziraphale was the first to lift his. “To family.”

They raised their glasses and drank – or at least, most of them did, and Ariadne tried to. But a scene streaked through her mind – a Hawaiian beach at sunset, an alien spaceship, a little blue creature in handcuffs – and she had to laugh.

“Ariadne?” asked Crowley. “What’s funny?”

She smiled at him, but when she answered, she looked at Hermes – who would get the reference if nobody else would. “This is my family. I found it all on my own.”

Hermes beamed. “It’s little—”

“And broken,” Dionysus put in – of course, he would get the reference too.

“But still good,” said Semele, who had also enjoyed that movie.

“Yeah,” Ariadne finished. “Still good.”

And it was.

* * *

[1] And here’s the proof: <https://www.amazon.com/Francisco-49Ers-NFL-Cardigan-Sweater/dp/B00PPT2E6Y?tag=xmastc-20>

[2] I.e., not at all.

[3] Considering this was the family that used a wedding to start a war, an argument was among the most civil things that could happen when they got going.

[4] And if she had to magic her mascara and eyeshadow back to perfection once the onions were safely chopped, absolutely nobody needed to know that. And naturally her eye makeup was only a problem because of the onions.

[5] Ariadne didn’t want to know how many of those Dionysus had polished off by himself – or how many other bottles had been drunk and already consigned to the recycling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tags to Mind**
> 
> **Ugly Holiday Sweaters** : Hermes is wearing one. I didn't describe it in detail (I'm not a horror writer), but I did include a link. Click on it at your own risk.
> 
> **Panic Attack/Anxiety** : Anxiety is basically Ariadne's entire mindset through this fic, but the panic attack happens shortly after Ariadne sees Aziraphale react to cranberry sauce from a can. She drops her full pot of very hot soup, covering herself and no small part of the dining room in the soup. She grabs the (hot) pot (with no potholders) and runs back into the kitchen, intent on re-making the soup. Dionysus follows to try to get her cleaned up, heal the burns, and calm her down, but Ariadne isn't listening. She doesn't even notice that her hands are burned until she tries to do things with them and they keep hurting. The back-and-forth continues until Semele bursts into the kitchen, dragging Aziraphale and Crowley with her.
> 
> If reading this would upset you, you'll want to skip starting at " _THE CRANBERRY SAUCE I FORGOT THE CRANBERRY SAUCE_ " and start up again at “ARIADNE. FREEZE.”
> 
> Thanks for reading this, everybody! Even if your Thanksgiving looks a bit different this year, I hope you all stay safe and eat way too much food. Next year, things should be better!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this! Comments give me LIFE, so don't be shy! If you spot any typos or grammatical mix-ups or something confuses you, please give me a shout-out so I can either explain or fix it. If you disagree with my characterization or plot choices ... please have a lovely day and go read something you like better.
> 
> If you'd like to chat more, please come talk to me on [Tumblr](https://morgaine2005.tumblr.com/)! Or look me up through Discord. Same username!


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